*Kasako-san, the lecturer of Kasako-Juku
(the photo from Kasako-san's official website, under his permission)
This time, one of my primary purposes of returning to Japan was to attend Kasako-Juku (かさこ塾), a unique self-branding course for everyone who wants to do the better branding for themselves, either for business or personal growth. In Fukuoka, he hosts the course from 13th May to 24th June bi-weekly this time. So, today was the first class, and I was duly excited to attend!
Kasako-san is a famous blogger and photographer in Japan, who also loves India and has shot ample pictures in the places like Varanasi, Agra, Mathura, mainly in the north. He is a smart young man who puts all his enthusiasm in leading, reminding and encouraging people to do what they like (or have liked) to do in their lives. As such, he updates his blog every day since the past 16 years now. Because he is a professional writer (as he has worked for editorial companies in the past decades) as well, his blog posts are usually very interesting and fruitful to read with lots of learning, and also, his incredible photos are so brilliant.
Today’s class was his introduction to “What is Self-Branding is Meant for an Individual.” In the last, he asked us to write down the answers to 12 questions, which were like "What you want to do if your life is ending in just one year from now?", "What would you do (or quit doing) if you get 10 billion yen cash in your hand?" While listing up my answers, I felt like somewhat shedding tears due to full of emotions to come out. He called it as "stocktaking of one's life."
Also, there was a self-introduction time from each participant. I was tense and could speak less than a half of what I wanted to introduce myself. However, after the lecture, I could talk with a few other participants and explain better myself. I felt many of them were rather in the health, healing or somewhat natural remedy related fields. I spotted one of my acquaintances T-san, who ran translation, interpretation and language education company in Kurume, the southern part of Fukuoka Prefecture. We became almost friends.
Overall, I enjoyed the class very much and time flew incredibly fast. One biggest regret is recognizing my laziness again. Many of the things he emphasised in the lecture today, such as “change your blog title to SEO friendly one,” “describe yourself better and be honest while writing your blog article,” etc., I had already learned in the last December when he visited Fukuoka. In spite, I have never done any of them. This time, I am eager and willing to move ahead as he has given us a few drills to do by the next class that are linked to my own tasks!
I wish he would do such self-branding lecture in India too. My opinion is that it requires a lot of "localizations" in front of Indian startups and entrepreneurs!
